Cold Reading - Your Thoughts?

[starrystarrynight]

This is a valid question, Marina.

If I sit across from a person to read the cards, how can I not notice if the person is female (or male), old (or young), ethnic in some way (or not), well-dressed (or "ragged"), etc.

And how can that information not filter somehow into my psyche and somehow color what I may see in the cards? Is, then, using this information to relate to the sitter not a form of cold reading, in its widest sense?

 

[blackairplane]

I agree, I think there is a verrrrrry fine line between cold reading and "intuition". For instance if a person came to me with his forehead tattooed I would never think he was going to get a job with a conservative bank even if that is what the cards implied. I would assume something else- cause that job with the conservative bank just is not gonna happen with ACDC tattooed across his face. I would look for another explanation. Intuition or cold reading? and who among us would go with the conservative bank interp??

 

[starrystarrynight]

Well, in that case, blackairplane...I would tell the guy that the cards seem to indicate he would get the job in the conservative bank...because that is what the cards said. (Being me, I might offer him an aside to the effect that conservatism seems to have changed over the years (but I would let him know that that was a personal observation--not what the cards were saying.) But that's just me.)

(However, I wonder if the cards would say that due to the (most excellent) body art he chose to display on his forehead. )

I don't know...that's why I asked the question here. </shrug>

 

[MareSaturni]

That's what i want to know. Of course, if the cards say he's going to get the job nonetheless, i'd let him know so and leave my opinion about the tattooo to myself.

But how can i be sure nothing in the sitter will color my reading? Maybe if i read with a blindfold, but then how will i read tarot (it is a visual divination after all)? What is intuition, what is cold reading? Lets see that when i look at the guy with the tattoooed forehead, i sense that he ain't gonna get the job - wa sthat cold reading or intuition? I think most would answer 'cold reading, obviously' but is it so? Just because it's obvious, and not some great revelation, does it mean it's cold reading? Or is it because it's related to his appearance?

So many questions...

 

[satine]

I think that you'll inevitably see clues that your intuition is on target, and then there will be times when your intuition tells you something that on the surface might seem ridiculous. For instance, the man in front of you may seem sloppy, have dirty fingernails and is wearing a stained t-shirt that has a few holes in it. By all appearances he may seem to make a modest living at best, but the cards seem to suggest that he's extremely financially affluent. The point is-- you'd trust the cards when there seems to be a contradiction between what you see in front of you and what you see in the cards. I guess it's about what you put your faith in.

In my opinion, true "cold readers" are not good people with consciences who accidentally notice something that is then processed intuitively; cold readers are calculating and strategic. It's human to notice the physical, and there's nothing wrong with doing so, as long as you don't allow these observations to overpower what your "sixth sense" is telling you.

ETA: In the tattoo example, I again think it would depend on what you're "getting" intuitively. If it is hitting you like a load of bricks that this guy is going to be offered at a job at a conservative bank, then this may be the case, even if you wonder how in the world that could happen. Who knows? Maybe he'll be heading up the landscaping crew that gets a huge contract with this large bank... Or maybe he'll be working in the bank itself in some capacity that you might not be able to envision if you're not intimately familiar with everything to do with these types of corporations. I am sure that I am influenced by what I notice visually and such, but in the end I trust that my (and any person's) gut feeling is pure.

 

[satine]

Cold reading gives real readers a bad name. I despise the practice. I go so far to avoid even accidental cold reading when reading in person that I avoid eye contact and even avoid looking at anything but the palm or cards I'm reading when working. I'm practically phobic about people getting the idea I'm cold reading, it disturbs me so greatly.

I understand this completely. I wonder, though, what the harm is of knowing a few facts that help a reader better interpret the cards? For example, as a sitter I've had readings that were completely off-target for a simple reason such as the person doing the reading assumed I was single and looking for love, or something similarly incorrect. Once the reader knew I was married and/or a little bit more about me, the reading actually made much better sense, even as I looked at the cards myself. Is this so wrong?

 

[Teheuti]

"Cold Reading" is actually a bunch of techniques + intent. The intent is to defraud or take advantage of others. Take away the intent and you have some really useful skills for helping people discover what is really important to them, and things they don't realize they already know.

Many of the basic techniques are also used by psychological and criminal investigators. Novelist Jeffrey Deaver has created a main character who appears in his latest thriller and is characterized as a "human lie detector." He includes an appendix in which he gives his sources among criminologist training manuals.

Unfortunately, we don't have a good term for the use of the underlying, observational and communication techniques as they are used in fortune-telling and, indeed, in almost all sensitive, empathetic human communications. Thus, the slightest hint of these techniques wrongly condemns the user.

In fact, you can read a bitter article by Karla McLauren, "a former New Age practitioner," who, after writing and publishing 9 popular books in the field, went over to the side of the sceptics. She explains:

"I didn't understand that I had long used a form of cold reading in my own work! I was never taught cold reading and I never intended to defraud anyone; I simply picked up the technique through cultural osmosis."
http://www.csicop.org/si/2004-05/new-age.html

For some reason she got herself into a born-again all-or-nothing quandry, without realizing that this is part of how we-as-humans communicate.

For myself, I try to be very aware of when I am "picking up" information from a querent, and I tell them exactly what I have observed. I call this being "transparent" in a reading. My intention is not to convince anyone that I am psychic or have a hotline to some inner wisdom (even if that's sometimes so), but to help the person get as quickly as possible to a vital issue and to help them recognize what they already know regarding it. The reading can, in addition, be a place to "try out" options and choices in the imagination that they hadn't yet considered.

P.S. Just found McLauren's latest website (since getting her degree in sociology) in which she seems to have come around to a more balanced way of thinking:

"I've found in my research that the skills I and other psychics have ARE understandable from a scientific and rational standpoint. Intuition is real, and it doesn't have to be paranormal in order to be fascinating and valid. . . . it is very natural to think that strong empathic (or intuitive) abilities are magical. They're not. And they don't need to be."
http://www.emovere.com/where.htm

(BTW, I took a workshop in psychic self-defense from McLauren around the time that she must have been writing her sceptics article. Something strange was going on that I couldn't figure out. Now it makes sense.)

I've already addressed some of the concrete sides of intuition on my Tarot Blog and plan to talk more about psychic development later.

I think it's very important for us to understand what "cold reading" is really about.

Mary

 

[MareSaturni]

Thank you for the enlightening post, Mary.

I have always wndered what are the limits of cold reading...because i see reader here getting paranoid over it, afraid of being seen as 'cold readers' just from looking at the readers. But from what i've ead here, a cold reader is someone with an intention - usually not a good one. They don't 'catch' things by accident, they look for those details in order to know more about the person.

I think that you'll inevitably see clues that your intuition is on target, and then there will be times when your intuition tells you something that on the surface might seem ridiculous. For instance, the man in front of you may seem sloppy, have dirty fingernails and is wearing a stained t-shirt that has a few holes in it. By all appearances he may seem to make a modest living at best, but the cards seem to suggest that he's extremely financially affluent.

Okay, but can't intuition work to notice obvious things.Like that the sloppy guy with dirty fingernails doesn't get work because he doesn't dress in a way that inspires people to hire him. And yet, he doesn't realize that and think they don't hire him because they are wrong. But apparently it's something obvious...couldn't that be intuition, or intuition is only when you realize non-obvious things?


Sorry about asking so many questions, i just want to go deeper in this subject.

 

[Teheuti]

But apparently it's something obvious...couldn't that be intuition, or intuition is only when you realize non-obvious things?

Sorry about asking so many questions, i just want to go deeper in this subject.

http://marygreer.wordpress.com/2008/03/23/psychic-awareness-or-intuition/

The moment of intuitive connection itself is usually unconscious, but you can train yourself to become more consciously aware of when and how an intuition occurs, and therefore evaluate and use the information consciously.

 

[blackairplane]

I just think it is impossible to sometimes seperate intuition from cold reading. It sounds all morally pure to say the sloppy guy may be a millionaire, and I agree that it is certainly possible that old 'dirty fingernails' could be the son of Bill Gates.....but given that logic... someone comes in for reading and you get very bad vibes about them.. they seem dangerous to you and you don't feel safe around them.....yet the cards say they are hunky dory...who are you gonna believe???
I know some of you are gonna say the cards would never fall positive for a bad person- but I am not that confident.
Since tattoos are kinda fashionable in a positive way for many among us- let me give another example. A three hundred pound 5 foot woman comes in and asks for a reading on her upcoming trip to a modeling tryout in New York City- putting aside all the maybes that she is a plus size model are you seriously gonna advise she spend her last dollar making the trip for the tryout??